Binging

Finding all these little critters in the bird feed barrel wasn't exactly how I wanted to start the day yesterday.  For the previous three or four mornings there had been just one mouse (ratlett?).  He hopped up and down like popcorn, but I'd been able to scoop him up with the feed cup and flip him out.  On the last day, he sat quietly and waited for the elevator.  I didn't expect him to invite all his friends or siblings for a free meal.  I was not going to put my hand in with this mob, so tilted the barrel and let them go free.

There probably aren't too many who remember the multitalented Hoagy Carmichael, but those who do will look at this photo and think of Ole Buttermilk Sky.  I sure did.

I spent the day binge watching back-to-back episodes of several series I'd previously recorded for just such a do-nothing day.  Larry called from Hawaii and we had a long, lovely chat.  We'd all been a little concerned that some of the smoke and ash from the volcano might have blown over from the big island to Oahu, but he said they'd not seen anything.  Good news.  Another call later wasn't so good; my ninety-something mother-in-law has broken her hip.

There was a public-service announcement on TV urging parents to have their kids put down their electronic devices and go outside to play at least a half-hour a day.  To an old fogie like me, that was just inconceivable.  Long, long ago, kids didn't need to be told to go outside, the hard part was getting us to come back in the house.  It got me thinking about all the things we did:  riding bikes, playing hopscotch, jumping on pogo sticks, making a wish before blowing the fluff off a dandelion, spitting watermelon seeds (watermelons used to have seeds), girls saying the alphabet while twisting the stem of an apple to find out the initial of their boyfriend and hoping it broke off at the name of some boy they liked, roller skates that needed a key to tighten, autograph books in which someone would inevitably write "Don't kiss _____ by the garden gate.  Love is blind, but the neighbors ain't," cutting out paper dolls, walking carefully down the sidewalk because we all knew that stepping on a crack would break your mother's back.  In a nutshell, we were busy!  Sigh.

Aside from the mice, it was a good day.